BPM Quotes of the Week - July 10, 2018

"The truth is, at this very moment your company is most likely either disrupting other companies or being disrupted. The only sustainable advantage you can have over others is AGILITY!, that’s it." -Vijay Amballa

"Companies that chase every new KM 'solution' without a clear business case rarely get the results they’re looking for." -Lauren Trees

"Leaders will be able to operate as true digital leaders only when they shake their reliance on structure as the primary tool of organizational design and instead start assigning accountabilities in ways that instigate focused responses to opportunities." -Jeanne Ross

"In particular with microservices there are serious consequences for operations, who now have to handle an ecosystem of small services rather than a single, well-defined monolith. Consequently if you don’t have certain baseline competencies, you shouldn’t consider using the microservice style." -Martin Fowler

From the BPM Forum

Are We Moving to an Environment Where Businesses Only Execute Their Core Business Capabilities?

"Before they do that, they need to figure out what their core business capabilities are. Amazing how many companies fail to understand that." -Jonathan Yarmis

"In an Industry 4.0 scenario, implying dynamic supply or value chains, organizations will be called upon to execute their core capabilities to add to the desired outcomes. I'm not sure organizations will be limited to a few of these dynamic chains, but I think commodity capabilities are great candidates for outsourcing. I think the net is that organizations will be able to prioritize on their core capabilities based on market demand." -Jim Sinur

"When we build with IT-system a needed capability (such as internet billing or digital features of services) it easy to manage, verify, use and copy when ever it is needed..... when the capability has human component (such sales competence or agility) the situation is much more complex.... it is not so easy to define tacit knowledge or organization culture." -Kai Laamanen

"There is measurable and irreversible tendency for all companies to specialize and to improve their specialties. While BPM and RPA may not be the cause of that situation, they sure are accelerators." -Kay Winkler

How Do You Make Sure Automating a Process Doesn't Result in a Worse Outcome?

"Start by figuring out what the process should be, and how to achieve the desired business result(s), without any automation. Then move on to studying how (or even whether) automation will lead to differences that the business needs and values. Computer's aren't smart; they're just fast." -Jon Spira

"There's an implicit assumption that automation of work is a 'one and done' exercise. These days any sane team running an automation project will do it iteratively, measuring all the time. Analysis to the nth degree up front is perhaps a seductive way to minimise the risk but with today's tools the far better approach is to work iteratively and measure iteratively." -Neil Ward-Dutton

"Only an automation software vendor would suggest you automate to identify the areas to simplify!!! A simple mapping workshop will quickly enable you to remove the waste BEFORE you automate." -Ian Gotts

"Preparing to enterprise automation, always begin with the study of business dependencies." -Boris Zinchenko

"'BPMS' as a distinct thing (type of automation platform, market segment, etc.) has been effectively dead for awhile. Evidence of this is that the top-line vendors (stack vendors like Oracle and IBM, as well as next tier players like Appian and Pega) effectively sell what used to be known as BPMS engines as application development platforms in which BPMS applications effectively become design motifs or patterns that the platform makes easier to implement." -Lloyd Dugan

"Business Processes needs Management now more than ever, but we'll have to market products that address that need under some other term." -John Reynolds

"From my perspective, the democratization of BPM technologies is a positive development which also leverages the importance of BPM standards, frameworks and established methodologies." -Kay Winkler

"We are seeing now a new generation of BPM-touting software competitors which are bringing a fresh urgency to the BPM opportunity. The technology keeps getting better. The fundamentals are waiting." -John Morris

"In terms of IT, we can expect that BPM will focus in a short prospect on micro-services and universal API tools to establish wider and more flexible system interaction. On wider scope we will definitely see deeper integration of business with equipment, robotics and IoT. BPM approach has no viable alternatives in unification of all these modern business trends." -Boris Zinchenko